Makeshift Reality
by firstForward
Summary: Bakura demands some assurances from Marik to make certain that he won't be betrayed. Marik enjoys playing some mind games.


Makeshift Reality

Marik was an artist, Bakura thought. Not the sort that painted, sculpted, or made music, though. Marik's art was something far more subtle. It was the art of control.

Scritch, scritch, scritch, went his pencil, across the single sheet of paper like a paintbrush. Bold, dark lines deliberately convoluted a mess of languages as he designed his plans of domination and victory through card games and magic. Bakura leaned against the cool metal of the wall, watching the movements of his fingers. Marik liked gripping the pencil like it was a weapon: he viciously dug his nails into the wood, stabbing, stabbing the page and writing a scrawl of Arabic-Japanese-English-Egyptian hieroglyphs. Bakura couldn't read it. He doubted that Marik could, but then he knew that it rather defeated the purpose of writing if he couldn't.

His shoulders were hunched, as if he were prepared to guard the nonsense words against an enemy's eyes —which, Bakura supposed, might be accurate if the blond considered him an enemy— but by contrast his legs were stretched out in relaxation. And Marik worked with a statue-like face. That was to say: his eyes were unmoving, his features smoothed out into non-expression. Marik was a relaxing cat, prepared to strike; uninterested human, and revolutionist making his agenda, all in one. Marik made decisions about how exactly to frame himself as if he were being photographed, every second Bakura was watching him, and carried those decisions out all while being carefully observant about Bakura's reactions. Bakura knew this, because he'd spotted Marik's eyes flicking over to him, pencil halting its movements for one brief instant. Bakura had narrowed his eyes.

Through his body language, and their lack of communication, Bakura was told that he was no co-conspirator, and was not worthy of learning Marik's thoughts on his mission. To Marik, Bakura was just a tool, just like every member of his criminal syndicate, and was not to be conversed with on matters of how to accomplish his vengeance. The idea that he could not be mind-controlled like them, Bakura thought, was rather irking for the teen. So Marik had to put up with Bakura walking into his room, demanding assurances that their deal would be upheld, while he was in the midst of planning. Slowly, the words had dripped from Bakura's tongue, steady little blips of "It would be...unfortunate if you were to decide that you needed the Rod after I had completed my part of our agreement," and "As an Item collector, Marik, I am very...aware...of how valuable each Item is...so it's rather interesting that you would deem it acceptable to hand the Rod over."

_Unfortunate_, said Bakura, and he watched Marik shift in his chair to guard the words against his eyes.

_If you were to decide_, fell the words so calmly into the air, and Bakura eyed Marik as he stabbed, stabbed the page.

_Valuable._

_Item._

_Rather interesting..._

If you think you can betray me, Bakura thought to the back of Marik's head, as he remained as unblinking as a statue, then you better think again.

Under their feet, the engine of the blimp thrummed, and Bakura thought that in the silence of the room he could almost feel it. Or perhaps the unending humming in his nerves was from the throbbing in his arm, still splotched with dried blood, and aching down to his fingertips. Bakura let himself relax against the hard metal at his back and crossed his aching and uninjured arms over his chest, giving off a bored air.

Marik matched his bored expression. "Think what you like of me. I'm not about to explain my actions to you." Still not looking at him. White paper yellow pencil dark skin. Bakura thought he saw Marik's lips moving. "What do you want, an IOU card?"

But then he blinked, and the image was gone.

"I just want to know what you think is more important than the Items," Bakura felt himself saying, and he watched himself watch Marik pause, and turn, like suddenly Bakura had become interesting.

There was a glass on the desk, and something dark inside like rum or scotch, but Bakura wasn't close enough to smell the alcohol on Marik's breath to know. The teen kept staring at him, and his hand reached out absently and grasped the glass, before standing and flinging the object quickly at Bakura, all in a single fluid movement. Bakura jerked his head down, felt his arm ache at the abrupt movement, and heard a clink.

Marik was pouring himself a glass of water. His back was turned to Bakura, which allowed him a moment to shake his head to clear it, dislodging images of a thrown glass at his head. Bakura opened his mouth and spoke aloud. "You're intelligent enough," came the cool words, easy and pointless, "whatever you're doing, you're confident about the direction you're taking."

"The lies are unnecessary," Marik returned, setting the jug of water down. The glass came up to his lips, and though Bakura couldn't see it he imagined that Marik gripped the glass much like he gripped the pencil. "I already know that you could care less about the details of my goals and desires. You don't much care for why I hate the Pharaoh, either. You're too caught up in your own problems to bother with such things."

Condensation gathered on the glass, and droplets of water slid down Marik's long fingers. Bakura watched the water darken to his skin tone and gather between his knuckles, becoming a colour like alcohol or diluted blood. Bakura watched Marik set the glass down, hands dry. Bakura listened to the blood pound in his aching arm: tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump.

"What makes you say that?" He asked, but his jaw moved like he was phrasing a demand.

"Come now," Marik shrugged, leaning back against the desk, not bothering to take a seat again. They were eyelevel. Nearly identical in height. "You think I can't tell what you're doing? The conversation you're making? It's exactly what I would have done, you see: feigning interest in my mission, in my hate and actions, in order to incite a response to gain a little insight into how I'm going to treat this relationship. Poke holes in my plans, make me angry, to know exactly how fast I'll drop our deal and keep the Rod for insurance. What kind of man are you dealing with? One who isn't about to play into your games, Bakura. For I am a king at mind games."

There was the glass, inches away from Marik's hand which rested on the desk's edge. "What do you expect of me?" Marik sneered, and the glass was flying at Bakura's head.

Marik was unmoving.

Bakura gave him a distasteful look. He never had liked men who claimed titles like _king_. Even if Marik looked the part —which he did, black markings under his eyes, gold adorning his arms and all— there was something disconcerting about a Rod-wielding Egyptian who knew more than a thing or two about ancient scriptures calling himself something so lofty. It made Bakura's fingers itch; he only got such a feelings when he had an urge to do some real damage. And Marik was saying, "And soon I will be a real king as well."

His hair was all wrong. Bad angles, or bad lighting, or something. Blond spikes, like the whole thing had been gelled, made him look taller than he actually was. And Marik was saying, "Just do your part and I'll do mine, and we'll go our separate ways, Bakura. Is that so hard to comprehend?"

You're giving me a headache, Bakura thought irritably. You're not worrying about me screwing things up because you know my end of the deal must be completed first. You're off the hook until I've dueled for you. So you're perfectly satisfied acting confused at my being here. You're in a position to be relaxed about our relationship.

Blinking had the image of Marik's gelled hair vanish from his sight, and that caused Bakura to feel even more irritated. "You've ignored the point of what I'm doing here," Bakura told him agitatedly. Rectify the problem, said his thoughts.

The Millennium Rod was not in Bakura's sightline, but he could feel the energy of its dark magic pulsing through the air as it drew closer to his Ring, and tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump went his heart; a pounding in his ears. Marik was standing a foot away. The magical energies crackled between them. Bakura thought he smelled alcohol. "Do you..." Marik hedged, tongue rolling behind his teeth, "need me to tell you that I need you? That you're necessary? Important?"

Marik was a foot away.

_Do you_...rumbled his voice, dropping in level, and uncaring of whether Bakura had to watch his mouth to understand the sounds it was making, so low in volume that it was though they were so close.

_Necessary? Important?_ Taunted his voice, and Marik stood like he was wanting to appear harmless and unconcerned. Dropped shoulders hands in pockets eyes barely focussed. "Needed?" Said his mouth, voice nonexistent, hair a mess of spikes. Bakura grit his teeth.

"Just tell me," he muttered back, "how unimportant the Rod is to you. And say it..." Bakura said in a dark, angry tone, "like you mean it."

Marik wasn't a foot away. A line of energy vibrated through the sparse air between them, shooting out like twin zippers, snap snap snapping through nerves. Rod and Ring hummed. Marik made a point to breathe in Bakura's tainted air —blood was caking under the bandages. "The R-o-o-o-d," Marik taunted, slowly and purposefully, and Bakura scowled like he wasn't watching Marik's mouth move.

The spiky-haired glass flinging image was smirking at him. "...not essential to my plans," finished Marik, and Bakura couldn't help but listen again, "Not needed. Pharaoh's the only one who needs such things to win. As for me...I have a god at my command," boasted the Marik Bakura was sure was just part of his imagination.

"So you did once before as well," Bakura noted.

Tough, desert-worn fingers found their way around his neck. Tightening, as the teen behind them growled, "That was another. This time I will have _Ra_." Nerves were pinching under his skin, but Bakura could only wince at the ache in his arm, and at the hot energy of the magic of two Items so near to one another.

Marik smelled like ocean water and alcohol. Bakura let the bones of his jaw crack as he breathed in silently, watching the cool gaze of the teen in front of him. "Foolish thing," Bakura grated out, "you will need everything that you can get; you have enough enemies to rival even _me_. But I will claim the Rod, and leave you with your single god and your slaves. It will be...entertaining, to see how far you can get."

His teeth were on Bakura's jaw, silencing him. His fingers were gripping the Rod. His fingers were gripping Bakura. Marik murmured, "I believe I find you," his fingers were clenching his skin; his collar bone; his striped shirt; nails dragging down, down, "just as entertaining."

Bakura watched himself react minimally to Marik clawing fingers, to the sharp tugging of his shirt, to the harsh touch at his arms. Then Bakura blinked—

His neck had been released. Marik was a step backward. Bakura refrained from rubbing the bridge of his nose. He refrained from glancing down at his shirt, to see if seams had been snapped. "Having a hard day? You seem...distracted," mocked Marik.

Don't answer that, Bakura told himself. You can't tell if that's the real Marik or not. You're hallucinating. You walked out of the hospital too early. You haven't slept much. Don't answer that.

The still mostly full glass of water on the desk seemed to interest Marik more than Bakura did then, for he turned around to go back to it, and took the bubble of the Rod's energy surrounding him with him. Bakura felt himself breathe a little easier. The Ring stopped making as much of a fuss under his shirt.

His tongue was dry, Bakura realized now, which was probably why he was watching Marik take another long drink out of the glass. Clear, cold fluid to match the cold feeling in his back. To contrast the sharp, hot twanging of the severed nerves and muscles in his arm. Marik put his hand in a bowl of ice, and let the cubes fall into the glass one at a time, uncaring about the water that splashed onto the desk. Clink. Clink.

He was drinking the water again, or not quite —Marik licked the rim of the glass, removing the condensation with little flicks of his tongue that had Bakura very still. Then as he tilted the glass back, the ice fell to his mouth first, and Marik bit down on one cube, holding it between his teeth and glancing at Bakura out of the corner of his eyes. Bakura considered threatening him, but he bit his tongue at the haze in his vision.

"Is this all you really came for, thief? Just wanted to stare at me?" Marik mused, arms wrapped around his own shoulders. Tongue rolling over the ice cube.

"Have I ever introduced myself as a thief to you?" Bakura returned, startled.

"Hmm?"

The double smirk on Marik's face made Bakura reconsider his threats, his retorts; all thoughts in his mind. He pulled away from the wall, and, shooting a narrowed-eyed look at Marik in place of a parting remark, left the room with quick strides.

Marik considered the doorway and Bakura's fading footsteps before rolling the ice cube around in his mouth once more and then spitting it back into the glass. His tongue felt incredibly frozen. "Thief?" He said anyway with his sore tongue, out of curiosity. But of course, his mind said. What collector of Items would he be, otherwise?

"He's a thief," said his mouth, for his ears, "because he was stealing our time. And staring, constantly..."

"Hmm," said Marik in return.

The glass was a decent size for throwing, his mind admitted again. It would have been amusing, to test Bakura's reflexes. To see how he'd react to threats. Just to see.

Marik swirled the water around, feeling the decent weight of the glass in his palm. "But ultimately," he mumbled, "a pointless action..."

It would have been amusing, to run his hands down Bakura's chest, to tug at his shirt until the stitches ripped open and thread dangled through his fingertips. To feel Bakura's skin between his teeth. How calmly he'd stood there, not moving, making short little phrases and barely reacting to him. Marik scowled.

"Afterwards," he said to himself, "maybe we'll go after him afterwards."

"Afterwards?"

"After the Pharaoh's defeat," said his voice, assuring him. Marik pursed his lips in contemplation. "First this tournament...and the Pharaoh."

"And then..." Marik agreed, deciding he liked the idea, "I want Bakura next."

The page of plans on the desk was added to; he put a little note in the corner scribbled in a single language only. Then Marik sighed, and downed the rest of the water, leaving the ice to melt at the bottom. Controlling a person like Bakura, Marik thought, forcing him to wedge himself into Marik's life, would be difficult at best.

He decided he liked the thought of the challenge.

(end)


End file.
